Fifty Shades of Cray

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Would you like fries with that hate?

I don’t know WHAT is happening to me that makes something like this meme being posted on facebook bug me to my very core.

I saw another post this morning where a friend of mine said she didn’t feel fast food workers deserved $15 an hour. I hope that my response was taken with peace and love because I truly meant no ill will, but I don’t understand the mentality in this country where one person feels they can determine what someones value is based on the job they have. How can you say “this person” deserves this because they worked hard for it and went to college to obtain it whereas “that person” doesn’t deserve that pay because it’s fast food? You DO realize many people who go to college have obtained student loans and grants that they have wasted frivolously and/or never bothered to pay back right? Or what about the student who got the grants and loans, blew the money and then decided they wanted to do something else and quit school AND THEN never paid back the loans? Why would those people, just because they went to college deserve anything more, especially when that money could have gone to someone who would have actually finished school??

Now, having spent 18 years of my life in the “mercantile” industry and a good portion of that in the little deli and bakery department which in all honesty is “glorified fast food”, I have a little problem with the whole “they don’t deserve that pay because it’s McDonalds” part. Most of the people who have that attitude probably have never worked in fast food of any type which should technically disqualify them from having anything to bitch about, oh if only. And although I never worked AT McDonalds or any type of fast food restaurant outside the walls of the grocery store, I have to believe that those individual businesses more than likely run very much like our little departments did at the grocery store.

Because it’s the food service industry we are both required to complete different certification and training to serve and handle food, and not just ANY food, but food that will more than likely be prepared and served to the people who are bitching about what they think we should be getting paid to prepare and serve it to them.

In order to be able to prepare and serve food, it needs to come from somewhere which means that pallets loaded with supplies both edible and non will be coming in off of trucks. They will have to be off loaded, sorted and put away which can require quite a bit of lifting and bending and depending on the individual facility the number of truckloads they get a week or day can be quite a bit of hard work and from experience we all hated Tuesday and Thursdays when our supplies came in. It was hard labor intensive work that required stamina, strength and a back that you hoped wouldn’t go out because it was STILL sore from the time before. Putting the load away sucks!!

Food service industries require quite a bit of time dedicated to prepping, whether it be for the next days production of food, supplies, scheduling or anything else that could possibly come up in between, they aren’t just running during business hours. It’s pretty crucial to have yourself a dedicated team of people who are willing to put forth great efforts to keep your business moving like a well oiled machine and that means there will always have to be someone willing to come in hours before the open sign is lit and someone willing to stay long after it has been turned off. It takes dedication and sacrifice to commit to the responsibilities necessary to keep a food service industry afloat, and coming in to work in the middle of the night so that your job is secure takes a lot of toll on a person. People have families and responsibilities outside of their job and a lot of times, those people are working AT these jobs so that they CAN one day move on to other things.

I think the main point that gets lost with people who are just dead set against these lowly peasants making higher wages is that they seem to forget that these people are serving them. These people are providing a service to everyone who steps through the doors of their establishment seeking sustenance that they do not have to be bothered to prepare for themselves. These people not only do not want to prepare their own food because they either are too busy and are in between life events, or too lazy to cook for themselves, but they also don’t want to have to pay too much for this food someone else is willing to prepare for them and they bitch about the prices too. These people expect fast service, they expect their food to be prepared fresh, hot, and to their very precise expectations and demands, and if it isnt they WILL complain. They expect to be catered to, doted upon, picked up after and if you don’t do all of these things with a shit eating grin on your pathetic fast food working face not only will they complain, now they will bash you on social media and then start an uproar when you ask for higher wages because god forbid the people who serve them make more money than them, right?

They tend to forget that behind the stigma and glow of the golden yellow arches there are people, human beings just like them that are willing to come to a place where they are judged and ridiculed for working at, in order to make a living for themselves by serving the ones who demean them. No one probably ever considers why any of them have chosen the food service industry and I would go so far as to assume no one probably cares so long as they get their service with a smile. Not only are these employees ridiculed and judged for working there, they are willingly working there, FOR WHATEVER REASON, KNOWING their job is to provide a service to the SAME PEOPLE who judge and ridicule them and have now decided that they don’t deserve to receive any more money than they currently make to serve them.

I know I originally said I didn’t know WHY the meme above and the outrage associated with it bothered me, but after having written out my thoughts it’s become clear to me. I have to wonder how much of this has to do with pride. Would I want a “hamburger flipper” to make the same wage as me? If someones wages are based on what they deserve which is determined by how much they work for them, I suppose someone in the food service industry deserves to make as much if not more than me. It’s not that physically difficult sitting in a comfortable chair all day long that’s for sure.